There’s nothing like an awesome group of six to eight year-olds to end an awesome summer of summer camp for us counselors and staff! We finished today with a freezing dip in the pool this morning, as well as some cold pool games later at eleven. We also were able to do our all camp creek hike, but without the waterfall jump (because of high water). Finally, we finished with our last worship with the parents with a skit about trees and a tree song!

Our neighbor is someone who cares for others, leads on the right path, makes enemies into friends, cares for strangers, and cares for the world! These are valuable lessons from Derek and Laurie. Thanks guys!

At our final staff meeting/party, we talked about our great summer, and all the stories of these kiddos. It’s very sad to have to leave this wonderful place. But we also started planning for 2018. It’s never too early to prepare for summer camp!

So from all of us summer staff at Laurelville, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to the parents and families who sent their kids and allowed us to learn from and with them. And we hope to see you next year!

Yesterday, we said hello to the little people of Mini Camp 2017! Although it’s our last half week, we are still super excited to show Laurelville Summer Camp to these kids (most of them are new!). We began camp with our cabin intros, in which we said our name and acted out our favorite animal. We also played some name and team-building games, like trying to pass a hula hoop around a circle without using our hands. Then we were introduced to Derek and Laurie Yoder who are the Bible teachers this week.

In the gatherings, we have been looking at what makes a neighbor, with the help of some great acting and goofy teachers. On Sunday night, we learned that a neighbor is someone who shows love. This morning, we learned that a neighbor also leads someone in the right path. Spotty the Owl has been helping us with our memory verse and helping us string up our prayers along the ceiling in a “prayer chain.”

But when we’re not worshiping, we have been sleeping through thunderstorms (with remarkably few tears), playing Upset the Fruit Basket, making tie-dye socks, hiking to Split Rock, and of course, the Polar Bear Swim! Because of last night’s storm, the creek is FAR too high to hike, but we’re hoping it calms down by tomorrow so these kids can jump off the bottom of the waterfall. This afternoon, we’ll spend lots of time at the pool during free time, do some silly games at the carnival (like digging for “worms” in pudding without hands and carrot spitting), and enjoy a people mover ride up to Sunset Hill to roast marshmallows and watch the sunset!

Can’t believe tomorrow is the last day, but we’ll still be busy. See you folks at dinner!

Time flies at Laurelville! Tomorrow is already our last full day, AND our last Thursday of summer camp :(. But that is not stopping us from living up the rest of our week with our Seekers. Since Monday night, we’ve had a SECOND polar bear swim, but this time in the waterfall. Needless to say, it was more polar. We also built over twenty new physics-defying rock towers in Jacob’s Creek. EVERYbody loves a good rock tower. Other activities included more Gaga Ball, hiking, mini golf, tennis, and a new one called Gatorball. In Gatorball, you attempt to knock bigger, balancing, balls off of your opposing team’s cups. We ended Tuesday night playing Persecution, in which campers run around to various “churches” getting signatures and learning a little bit about some Anabaptist martyrs all the while trying to avoid being tagged by the persecutors. Only a few campers got all nine signatures.

But besides all of the running, sweating, and laughing, we’ve also been doing a lot of serious learning during the Gathering times. Bible teachers Derek and Becky have had us acting out how we can help modern day people in need with more than just a handout. One scenario we worked on was a bully teasing an individual. The campers were asked to add or replace characters in order to help the person in need. But it wasn’t just comforting the person or confronting the bully. The Good Samaritan “bandaged wounds AND poured on oil and wine AND took him to an inn AND paid for any extra expense.” So we spent some time thinking of reasonable responses that went beyond the “right thing to do.”

Meanwhile, in our delving deeper into the Samaritan story, we thought a little more about how God is always calling on “unqualified” individuals and is ALWAYS welcoming outsiders. For instance, the man who brought Israel out of Egypt was a stutterer and Jesus’ own disciples were boring old fishers and evil tax collectors! And one example of Jesus’ welcoming is his calling all of the children to come to him. The Bible is loaded with examples of this “upside-down” thinking. We then spent some time journaling about why it is that we avoid the outsiders in our life. These kids have been doing awesome with the depth of Derek and Becky’s teaching.

Tonight, we will be heading far off the beaten path to Sunset Hill to sleep out! I don’t want to jinx it, but this is the first summer that I’ve been on staff here in which we’ve slept out every week. Congrats 2017!

Tomorrow, we are hoping to be able to give our Seekers a taste of MUD, depending on the dryness of our mud pit (and give our Program Director Katie Cline a taste of the duck pond. Happy Birthday, Katie and Sanderson!).

Like I said, we aren’t letting the ever-nearing end date bum us out or slow us down.

Well, folks, it is time for another great week of camp. This year for Seekers Camp we’re excited to have an awesome group of campers and to welcome back two Laurelville counselor/director alums as the Bible teachers, Derek and Becky King; all the way from Kansas!

Derek has been diving right into our Bible lessons with some group work in which we were challenged to think of who and what Jesus is to us. God has too many names to count. This morning we also journaled about times in which we acted like the priest or Levite and made excuses to not help those in need.

Besides our awesome Gatherings, the Seekers have already demonstrated their creativity with our “Creative Cabin” in which cabins compete to come up with the coolest design or creation within their cabin. Steinbach made a giant chicken that was Stein-“bawking” and Berne had a cave made from their bunk beds. Tomorrow, we will compete to have the cleanest cabin. Besides that activity, we’re also hanging out in the creek building everyone’s favorite Ebenezers – rock towers, jumping off the waterfall, and making cool crafts (today was pocket pencil pouches) with Brayden Thomas the craft extraordinaire. Tonight, after free time and dinner, we’re going to be making yet another round of banana boats. We’ll also take part in the peaceful Mennonite game called Slaughter, in which campers and counselors compete to keep gold bars while not letting anyone steal their flag. After that, we’ll end the night with an evening dip in the pool to cool off.

What would your life look like if you made the “Samaritan” the center of your story?

Our Navigators have been brewing on this question from Dave a little bit in the last few sessions. There’s always someone in our lives that we avoid because they’re different. Whether it’s skin color, age, or religion, we just don’t really associate with them. But Jesus preached of an upside-down kingdom, where our “Samaritans” were our neighbors! We’ve been struggling with how we can live out Jesus’ story and vision.

But besides our in-depth breakdown of Scripture, we’ve also been trucking along with camp (despite the rain!). On Tuesday, we experienced a rather significant downpour, and so we spent our afternoon time in the Shen playing Anklebiters- a camp favorite in which you basically play dodgeball with beanbags directed towards your ankles or feet. Our washed-out waterfall has now been mended and is back in business, so we also had our first creek hike of the week– waterfall jump included. Blake and Hannah (our rec directors) have been keeping us on our toes during dinners with twin night, tied-to-your-neighbor’s-wrist-night, and wacky Wednesday night. Rarely do we have a dull meal! Also on Tuesday was Mission Impossible, in which we embarked on a mission across campus to retrieve and return glowsticks to our bases. But there was one catch: counselors were chasing us…but it was still a good time.

On Wednesday, we played all the camp classics, made more tie-dye socks, and in the evening headed up to everyone’s favorite vacation and/or wedding destination: SUNSET HILL! This year we even got to ride on the Peoplemover to get there! Up on the hill, we heard more from Dave about the symbol of the cross, and we played awesome games in the grass. We ended the night with a sing-along of silly and serious songs as loud as our lungs allowed. I’m certain all of Mt. Pleasant heard us!

This morning we’re excited for our last full day, which will definitely be packed. I’ll give you some clues: mud, games, mud, and talent show. Oh, did I mention MUD?

We are more than excited to be back at Laurelville for another great week of camp! We had a good week relaxing, travelling, and being at convention. But yesterday, we welcomed our ten to twelve-year-olds with gusto! Rec Director Blake had us playing Human Knot, Jedi Mind Tricks, Barnyard, Catch the Dragon Tail, and Smog’s Jewels…If you can guess how any of those games work, kudos to you! But they were awesome. Our Bible Teacher this week is Pittsburgh Mennonite Church’s own Dave Swanson, and he’s already been crushing it with his skits. Dr. Mansplain Biblebrain, Ph.D. and Biff the Samaritan are just two characters that might give you an idea of what our skits were like! Dave’s been giving us lots of historical background on the story of the Good Samaritan and answering all of the questions that the campers have about the story.

Today, we played some classic games like mafia, basketball, and Ultimate Frisbee. We are happy to have a new camp classic called Gaga Ball! Thanks to Disciples camper and Eagle Scout, Braden Coffman, our Gaga pit has been constructed, and we have been loving it. Basically, it’s an enclosed version of dodgeball in a wooden ring. Thanks, Braden!

Katie Cline has also been showing us the ropes (literally!) course, and Tiffany has been showing us awesome crafts. Tonight, we will chow down on Banana Boats, and wake up bright and early for the Polar Bear Swim in the morning. Feel free to join us in our polar bear song at 7amtomorrow!

“It’s summertime at Laurelville It’s thirty degrees below! The polar bears are swimming, because they love it so! They get up very early, they grab their suits and run. We ask them why they do it. They say, “‘To have some fun!'”

I can’t believe it’s Friday already! This week has been AWESOME! The weather did hold out Wednesday night, so we had a great time singing songs, listening to Alyssa’s message, and spending time praying with and for one another. After that, we played games, made s’mores, and slept under the stars. Wow! What a special night!

Yesterday, Alyssa talked to us more about how we can help others and show God’s love. We’re thankful for Alyssa sharing God’s Word with us this week. She rocks!

Last night, we roasted hot dogs for dinner then had a special group activity…slip n slide and water games! It was so much fun. Lots of laughter, and lots of counselors getting soaked thanks to the campers! The excitement didn’t stop there. We hosted our annual talent show and saw so many great acts. We saw magic tricks, dances, cabin skits, and even the counselors did a little song. These memories will last for a lifetime.

We’re going to make the most out of our Friday together! We started it out by giving counselor Olivia a birthday dunk in the duck pond. Parents, we’re excited to see you in just a little bit to share all that we learned this week!

Hey folks, it’s everyone’s favorite day: HUMP DAY! Except, it’s also kind of sad, because we only have two more full days with these awesome kiddos! It’s been a whirlwind of two days here at Explorers Camp. We’ve had the chance to experience some of the great classic camp activities since Sunday, most notably our annual Carnival and of course: THE COUNSELOR HUNT. Our awesome rec directors set up a bunch of stations including horse races, high jump, face paint, water-balloon-your-counselor, and many more! And last night the counselors headed out to be hunted by the campers. Both activities made the whole day a huge success.

Not to mention, we’ve been learning about how sometimes we put up fences between us and our neighbor. And our neighbor can be just about ANYONE: uncool, not-so-smart, annoying, friendly, depressed, and MANY more. We even got the chance to create our OWN fence………..and then SMASH IT. Because we don’t do fences here at Explorers Camp 2017. There’s never a dull moment during our worship times!

Besides all that, we’ve just been having fun hanging out, singing silly songs, dressing up wacky, eating banana boats, and making craft after craft after craft.

And if weather cooperates, tonight we will sleep out under the stars on Sunset Hill! Can we just stay at Laurelville Summer Camp forever?

Week number two has begun, folks! Hello to our awesome, smart, and energetic Explorers! We are so excited to be starting another week and learning with these little people. We’ve already spent time getting to know each other, play carpetball, and play Upset the Fruit-basket.

And most importantly, we had our first lesson from the one and only Alyssa Green, who talked to us about the importance of filling each other’s buckets with kind words and actions rather than dipping from their bucket. Our singing and worshiping time was full of bubbles, laughter, and awesome participation from awesome kids!

It may only be the first full day, but we are more than excited to walk with these kids this week. Keep your eye out for more blogs, and keep filling buckets!

We here at Laurelville have a shared belief: water = fun. These last three days have been the epitome of how we live that out. On Tuesday afternoon, we held Laurelville Summer Camp’s first ever Mud Games Extravaganza. Needless to say, the campers will be coming home with some newly brown-dyed clothing. The games included a Laurelville favorite, Slaughter, Tug of War, and even some choreographed interpretive dances. Then we paraded through camp to shower in the creek! Tuesday night also included our traditional Tin Foil Dinners, steamed with love on the fire for 12.5 minutes on each side. Another wet and dirty activity was our Wednesday rafting trip to Ohiopyle. There were only minor casualties, including an airborne Bible Teacher and a couple of campers who decided to swim a few rapids instead of raft them (check out the pictures!). After our journey back home, we headed up to Sunset Hill for the night, and began worship. This worship however was very special. Imagine a dark cloud in the distance, with lines of rain seen dropping, with the sun just peeking through blue skies to the west, and John Stoltzfus soldiering on with his lesson. Unfortunately, despite all of our positive energy, the world’s smallest cell of a rainstorm passed right over and began drenching us. We sadly marched down to the pavilion and got dry clothes, but we were able to cover our already laid out sleeping bags with a tarp to keep them dry. Maybe 15 minutes later, the rain was completely gone, and we were able to again crest Sunset Hill, full of optimism about actually being able to sleep out! Once again, how can anything be fun without any water?! We sang the night away and slept soundly, and have been having a great day since.

Speaking of airborne and courageous Bible Teachers, we have been blessed with some awesome lessons this week by Lansdale’s own John Stoltzfus. John has been teaching us about modern and ancient superheroes who live out Jesus’ message to “Go and Do Likewise.” We’ve also had some opportunities to work on our affirmation of each other, and delve further into other parables, while still being able to laugh along the way, and learn about John’s adventures across the USA and through his life.

Sadly, it’s our last full day, but we’re filling it to the fullest with crafts, Capture the Flag, the Ropes Course, Spikeball, and to top it all off- our annual Talent Show tonight. Can’t wait to see you all here tomorrow!